


heart vernacular

by Papaveri



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 09:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10784469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Papaveri/pseuds/Papaveri
Summary: Ephraim is not good at learning new languages or at giving names to what he feels.





	heart vernacular

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Snowfaun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowfaun/gifts).



What they speak in Grado has a way of making words purr and tremble that tires your throat. Ephraim needed some additional practice with Eirika at night, under candles, in a shared room that reminds him of his childhood. She asked him, with a playful and gentle smile, what did he think of Lyon? And Ephraim didn't quite understand the name of the prince as a name, and she giggled, switching back to their own language.

Lyon tame d  the words for him, though. He turn ed storms into drizzle, a sentence he will never understand into a stream of light he h e ld on his hands for them. He also d id this at night, in their room, but there  were no candles. The shining rope he twist ed between his fingers ha d a cold brilliance that ma de Lyon's skin and Eirika's eyes flatter, like those in paintings.

“Could I do this?,” Eirika asked. “I've never done magic before, is it too late to start now?”

“I don't think so,” said Lyon. “I think I could teach you. I could teach you both.”

Ephraim never g ot the hang of it, however, and Eirika t old him that the spark she felt in her chest at her first spell, something that did burn her as if it had sprung from a fire, that first spark made her feel uneasy because it stuck on her tongue for a couple hours,  strong as the aftertaste of stolen alcohol.

“Maybe we're just not good with languages, Ephraim,” she said, from her bed. 

(Yet Lyon speaks theirs almost perfectly, he only stumbles a bit on longer vowels. It must be something about mages.)

When he b ecame stuck with a section of their history book, Lyon summon ed little soldiers to act for him on his table, and fe lt a little bit dazed  for the rest of the day . Eirika scold ed him,  scolded them both, but Ephraim g ot to put an arm around his shoulders without having to pretend he want ed to  let him go.

“I'm okay, really,” and he felt his weak laughter on his ribs. 

For the first time, Ephraim realize d the soft darkness in Lyon's hands isn't washed out ink. It pulsate d gently, like a sleeping dragon.

 

 

“Eirika is looking for you.”

Ephraim likes the training grounds at the Grado castle. He managed to convince some official to spar with him while he was there,  _as long as it does not distract you from your learning_ . However, it didn't take much talking, and everyone sounded elated to have him there, a prince, a prince. 

Lyon didn't seem to go there much. It must have been the third  time he'd seen him in the grounds, fumbling and ominous like a dark cloud and catching the gaze of everyone despite trying so hard to be silent.

(They  were alone  then . They were alone the first time, when Ephraim tried to help him with a sword and ended up with a broken nose.)

“Yeah, I guess I should be going now.” Ephraim gave a last pat to the lance he had been using the most. It had a slight crack on the handle from a blow he blocked too hastily, but it should have held up well after he had gone back to Renais. He turned to Lyon and his words changed. “Don't make that face. We'll see each other again. All three of us – you, me and Eirika.”

When he put his hand on Lyon's shoulder,  he smiled and wiped his eyes.

“Yeah… I know. But when we get older, when we each take the reigns of our nations…” Lyon faltered a bit. His gaze went from him to the ground and then back to him, a blur of gray and pink, and Ephraim noticed the soft rosy shade in his face. 

(And he thought, he just talked to Eirika, right? He said,  _we probably won't meet again as friends_ , and there was a new glint, a new darkness in his pupils, intriguing and unreadable like the magic he tried to teach him.)

“What's that got to do with anything? Kings are human too. Emperors need not to be friendless, you know.”

“I suppose you're right.”

( He had this urge. Lyon talked of war with a weird tremor in his voice and Ephraim thought of his hands, stained gray, black, gentle under the lines of the books he read and acted out for him. He felt he was not going to understand them until he could touch them properly, until he could trace the lines on Lyon's palms with his fingers like he did with the handles of weapons, trace the lines to know the soft parts from the hard ones, to tell where to press, gently, gently.

Like a foreign language.

He had thought of Lyon's language, his tongue, like that, too.)

“We're friends forever. Nothing can change that. You'll see.”

 

***

 

Ephraim wakes in his own room, alone.

(In his dream, Lyon repeated his words, but in the language he shares with his father and his sister. 

“Nothing can change that. You'll see.”

The pressure of Lyon's hands on his shoulders is like sugar on his tongue, sweet and excessive and fleeting. He kisses him but Ephraim has never been kissed.

There must be more, right? Less dry, less short. 

When he told him he loved him, he hated him, his voice was cloying, unearthly bubbling, liquid and seeping, so warm! The ghostly warmth of his breath in his face, that's how it must be. Lyon breathed his last in his arms, asking him to smile.

 

It must be like that.)

**Author's Note:**

> The other day I discovered none of the friends I got into this game actually like this ship - considering that I ended up justifying my reading with "no, you see, Ephraim is just very stupid", maybe I have something to do with it.
> 
> However! It also gave me a bit of an idea, that solidified when another friend asked for this ship with the prompt "Slowly, the words dripping from your tongue like honey" from a "The way you said I love you". I really like talking about language and understanding because it's my job, and I talked about the weird Fomortiis voice before in my fic. I really like that too!
> 
> I hope my friend Donnie likes this, and you too of course! I have a couple more requests - one of them is (mostly) for this same fandom so please stay put `u´9
> 
> Thanks for reading as always!


End file.
